How to avoid leprosy

I’m concerned with my mother’s health. She was positively diagnosed to have leprosy. Since then, she has been crying and asking how she has
gotten the disease. She keeps on torturing herself, asking what sin she has committed to have been punished this way.

I love my mom very much. I share most of my time comforting her, telling her positive things about her disease.

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Could you please enlighten me on this kind of disease. What should I do to avoid this disease? I’m the only one taking care of my mother. I’m
never going to abandon her whatever it costs.

Cherrie

Dear Cherrie,

Your mother is indeed blessed to have a daughter as caring and loving as you. I presume that the doctor who diagnosed her to be suffering from leprosy is a competent one. As such, this physician must have already prescribed some medicine for her to take in order to arrest the extent of the damage wrought by this disease.

If your doctor has not done so yet, I recommend you see another one the soonest. What I strongly suggest is for your mom to follow your doctor’s
prescription and instructions religiously. For instance, if the doctor advises her to take her medicine daily or twice a day for so many weeks or months, please let her heed the doctor’s advice to the letter.

Oftentimes leprosy requires prolonged medication. Your mother’s reaction about her ailment is mostly a carry-over of the dread that has been associated with leprosy, particularly during pre-historic times.

If you recall, during those times, those afflicted with leprosy were considered to be ”living dead.” They were even banished from society. But that is a thing of the past. Medicine, science, research and development
have made leaps and bounds as far as leprosy is concerned.

I’m 35 years old and a mother of four. My concern is that I occasionally experience a vague discomfort and sometimes pain in my anus. Sometimes I feel something protruding that goes away when I push it back in.

I noticed also that my bowel movement is blood-streaked or has a mucous-like substance especially when I’m particularly constipated.

Please advise me on what to do because I’m really getting worried.

Jasmine

Dear Jasmine,

From what I gather, you may be suffering from hemorrhoids. This condition is fairly common in women who have given birth several times already. It also happens to those frequently strain at stool and those who are often constipated; or those who have frequent anal infections.

In most cases, the condition improves spontaneously or in response to high-roughage diet, intake of psyllium seeds preparations, or nonirritating laxatives to produce soft stool. Pains in the area may be relieved by what are known as “hot sitz bath”—you put warm water in a basin and sit on the basin’s rim as you would on a urinal. Sort of a steam bath for your nether region.

I advise you, though, to still see your physician to make sure that your symptoms are not due to any other condition, or, so that complications like incontinence, infection or ulcerations will be avoided. I hope you’ll feel better soon.

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